


Year of the Cat

by tigs



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-06
Updated: 2010-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:25:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigs/pseuds/tigs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Brendon sees the cat while he's out on his walk with Bogart, he doesn't immediately notice it. (Or, the one in which Brendon and Spencer get adopted by a cat.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Year of the Cat

The first time Brendon sees the cat while he's out on his walk with Bogart, he doesn't immediately notice it. He probably wouldn't notice it at _all_ except for the fact that Bogart yelps and pulls at his leash and when Brendon looks around to see why, he sees the cat sitting in the middle of the yard. Oh look, he thinks, a cat. And then he pulls Bogart away.

The second time he sees the cat, he's still out on his walk with Bogart, and this time he pays more attention. Mostly because, well, they're only three houses further down the street than they were before, and yet there the cat is again, sitting quite primly in the middle of yet another lawn, like it's been there for ages. He wonders, briefly, if he's mistaken. He wonders if there could be two orange and white spotted cats in this section of the neighborhood. If they both just happen to be out enjoying their lawns on this nice, warm, sunny day. Pure coincidence.

When he and Bogart see the cat for a third time, though, this time another four houses down, Brendon laughs out loud and picks Bogart up in an attempt to stop his frantic lunging and barking, and he says to the cat, "So this is your idea of a good time?"

The cat blinks at him once, then deliberately turns its head away and begins using its paw to wash behind its ear.

Brendon doesn't see the cat again.

*

Well, not on that particular walk, anyway.

*

The next time Brendon sees the cat, he doesn't have Bogart with him. That should probably be considered a good thing, because the last thing Brendon needs right now is to be balancing beer bottle-filled grocery bags with an excited, yappy dog.

It's hard enough walking the three blocks from the grocery store balancing beer bottle-filled grocery bags with only Spencer in tow.

Brendon probably wouldn't have noticed the cat this time either, except that today, now, it's sitting at the end of a driveway, in a classically posed sitting cat position, the tip of its tail flicking mildly.

"Spencer," Brendon says. "It's the _cat_."

And Spencer, because he's Spencer, actually puts two and two together and gets four and says, "Bogart's cat?"

Brendon nods. And this time, because he doesn't have ten pounds of struggling dog trying to pull his arm off, he sets the grocery bags down on the pavement, crouches down, and extends his fingers.

Spencer stands behind him, providing Brendon with a bit of shade, and rolls his eyes. Or at least Brendon assumes that he does, because making fun of Brendon's inability to not say hi to all animals (except for cows, because they have the creepy long tongues) (and, okay, anything in the arachnid family, too, because they are just a world of _no_) is exactly the sort of thing that Spencer takes great pleasure in doing.

Despite his best overtures, though, the cat just stares at him, like he is barely worthy of notice, and then proceeds to start licking at its shoulder.

"Three different houses," Brendon says again, looking up at Spencer. "It played hide and go seek for _half a block_ with us."

"I believe you," Spencer says. Probably because Brendon was so amused by the story that he had to tell it to Spencer (twice), and then to Shane, and then to both of them again when he realized that Regan hadn't heard it yet. It's not every day that Bogart's walks involve being stalked by a cat after all.

Since the cat seems to be intent on not paying them any more attention, Brendon finally stands up, picks up his bags, and continues walking down the street.

"Somehow I thought it would be bigger," Spencer says, another house or two further down. "The way you described it, you made it sound like it was a monster cat: 25 pounds of fluff and claws or something like that."

"I made it sound like a sneaky cat," Brendon says. "Because it sneaks very well."

When he turns around to look back down the street again, though, the cat is gone. He spends at least a block looking over his shoulder to see if he can spot the cat stalking them, and while he sees a few bushes moving suspiciously energetically, it very well could just be the wind.

A block after that, Spencer says, "Please don't write any songs inspired by us being stalked by cats."

"Spencer Smith," Brendon says dramatically. "You're stifling my creativity."

Spencer punches Brendon in the shoulder.

*

Of _course_ the day that the cat shows up in _their_ front yard, Spencer's in Vegas, visiting his parents.

Brendon doesn't notice the cat at first, too busy staring aimlessly across the street as he washes up his breakfast dishes, but then he sees a flash of orange out of the corner of his eye. Then he sees white. And then, making it's way out of the bush at the side of the yard, he sees _the cat_.

It looks around slowly, tail upright, slightly curved at the tip, and Brendon watches as it lifts its head and sniffs at the air. Then, as if it can tell that it's being watched, it sits down in the middle of the driveway and looks directly at him.

Brendon can't resist. He pulls his iPhone out of his pocket, holds it up to the window, and takes a picture. He sends it to Spencer immediately, typing: _stalker!_

Spencer replies an hour later with: ......

Brendon laughs when he gets the text and says, "Remember this day, Bogart. We made Spencer speechless."

*

Brendon laughs more loudly the next time he sees the cat. Mainly because, well. Well, because Bogart's at the door that leads out to the deck, paws scrabbling against the glass, and he's barking his little head off, and when Brendon goes to see what's going on, he sees the cat.

Sitting on their deck.

Next to Spencer, who's got his fingers extended, close enough for the cat to smell them, if it decides that that is what it wants to do.

And as Brendon watches, it does. It hesitantly extends its head, leaning close enough that its whiskers _have_ to be brushing against Spencer's skin, and Bogart goes absolutely bonkers. The cat, of course, just twitches an ear in their direction. Then, as if it knows what will drive Bogart even _more_ wild, it leans in just a little further and bumps its head against the underside of Spencer's hand.

Bogart throws himself against the glass hard enough that Brendon feels the need to pick him up, to make it better, and Bogart licks at his chin a few times before trying to swim out of Brendon's arms and _go get that cat_.

When Spencer looks back at the house, he looks perhaps a little chagrined, but he apparently doesn't feel guilty enough to stop rubbing at the cat's ears.

*

Brendon's not laughing quite as much, though, the third morning that he goes out onto the front porch to find the cat curled up on their doormat.

"Dude," he says, despite the fact that he's not sure if it's a dude or a lady. "You need to go home."

The cat just stares at him, then hops up on the porch rail, and bites at an itch on its tail.

The fifth morning in a row that he finds the cat out front he starts walking, retracing his steps back to the house that he first saw the cat at. He stares at it, at the neatly manicured lawn, before taking a deep breath and walking up to the front door. He rings the doorbell, then rocks back on his heels, waiting for someone to answer. It takes awhile, but finally he hears footsteps inside, moving towards the door.

It's an older lady who answers—one who looks like she could be Brendon's grandma—and she stares at him and his tattoos suspiciously before saying, "Yes?"

"Ma'am," Brendon says, feeling like his tongue is stumbling over the word, and he's pretty sure that he should have brought Spencer with him. Little old ladies always like Spencer. "Are you missing a cat?" he asks.

"I don't have a cat," the lady says, not unkindly. "Not officially, anyway. I assume you're talking about Fluffers?"

The orange and white cat is not what Brendon would call fluffy; he would definitely lean more towards 'sleek' as a description. Still, he says, "Orange and white? About yea big?"

The lady nods. "Yes, yes, that's Fluffers. She just showed up one day and rather refused to leave. Has she adopted you now?"

"Possibly," Brendon says slowly, because, well. Because.

"She adopted the Murphy family first," the lady says. "And then they had their twins, you know, and then she went up the street to the Allen house, but then their children came home from college for the summer, and then she came to me. But I'm getting ready to move out to Iowa to be closer to my grandchildren, and, well. Just between the two of us, I think she knew. So she was on the lookout for a new family."

Brendon blinks, because that's not the sort of answer he was expecting, not at all. He's expecting it even less when the lady starts down the hall saying, "Stay there, I'll be right back," and comes back two minutes later with a bowl and a bag of cat food in hand.

"She likes Fancy Feast," she says. "The filet mignon flavor. She also likes to hog the pillows."

"I—" Brendon says. He doesn't say that he and Spencer aren't looking for a cat, that they aren't cat people, that the cat surely wouldn't want to live in a house with _Bogart_.

"Take good care of her," the lady says, and Brendon doesn't have anything to say to that either.

*

Which is how, ten minutes later, Brendon ends up sneaking the cat bowl and the bag of Fancy Feast into their house, hoping that Spencer won't notice that apparently they're in the process of being adopted. He's practicing his surprised face—oh look! how did that bowl full of cat food end up on our front porch?—when he looks out in the backyard and sees Spencer sitting on the lawn, the cat curled up by his knee.

Bogart is sitting at the back door, of course, whining as loudly as he can, and Brendon thinks: well, it has to happen sometime, right? So, he knocks on the glass loudly enough to draw Spencer's attention, then points down at Bogart, then attaches the leash to Bogart's collar, and opens the door.

The cat arches up almost immediately, and Brendon stops Bogart about five feet from Spencer and the cat. He makes Bogart sit, which Bogart does reluctantly, and leaves it up to the cat to approach or run away. It takes a moment, but she comes towards them, sniffing the air.

Bogart whines. A lot. But he stays. And stays.

And then Brendon kneels down and tells him what a good dog he is.

Spencer looks at him oddly, at which point Brendon realizes that Spencer doesn't _know_ that they've been adopted.

"She's apparently our cat now," Brendon says, before telling Spencer about his conversation with the old lady.

"And she wants to live with a dog?" Spencer asks, eying the cat, who is in the process of giving herself a bath, just out of range of the leash, should Bogart decide to go for her. Bogart is still being a good boy, though: sitting, whining, his tail twitching.

"Apparently?" Brendon asks, and makes a note of googling how exactly one is supposed to go about making sure that cats and dogs can live in harmony in one house. He thinks there's still time to return the bowl and food to the old lady, because surely if they don't encourage the cat, she'll choose someone else, someone without a dog. When he looks back at the cat, though, she's sitting up straight again, blinking slowly at him.

"We aren't calling you Fluffers," Brendon says.

*

Which is how two weeks (five days of barking, three clawed noses, four new scratching posts, eighteen toy mice and balls with bells in them, and one new collar) later, Brendon finds himself sitting in the TV room, with Bogart curled up against his thigh, Spencer asleep against his shoulder, and the cat, now called Miss P. Galore, sitting in his lap like she belongs there, purring loudly enough that it almost drowns out the TV.

Life, Brendon's pretty sure, could be a whole lot worse.


End file.
